


Known Things

by YukiRiikus_Reading_Room



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Civilian Dean Winchester, Confused Castiel, F/M, Heaven's Civil War, Longing, M/M, Pining, Protective Castiel, Secret Crush, Soulless Sam Era, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-10
Updated: 2014-05-10
Packaged: 2018-01-24 06:32:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1595102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YukiRiikus_Reading_Room/pseuds/YukiRiikus_Reading_Room
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel knew it would be a bad idea to go and visit Dean while he was with Lisa.</p><p>After all once Sam fell into the Pit saving the world from Lucifer, Dean had given up hunting and everything that went with it.  And that included him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Known Things

He’d known this would be a bad idea.

After all, they’d all heard the promise the brothers had made each other before the final fight: if one died, the other gave up hunting and found a way to live a normal, demon and unnatural-creature-free life. When Sam threw himself into the pit to contain Lucifer, to save his brother and subsequently the world, Castiel should have known it meant the end.

The end of his infatuation with Dean Winchester, anyways.

Now as he stood outside of the house he’d followed Dean to after losing his brother, he felt an odd pang in his chest as he watched from the street as Dean chased a young boy through his yard with a squirt gun, both of them laughing as they tore through the grass. There was a foreign emotion on the hunter’s face that Cas had rarely seen there before, and it took him a moment to recognize what it was: contentedness. 

Here, away from him and everything he’d ever known, been raised and trained for, Dean was beginning to be happy for what the angel understood might be the first time in his life. It was only a small mental leap from this knowledge that Castiel began to think that it meant the hunter would remain happy only as long as he stayed away. 

Dean could only be happy, he knew, if he stayed far away from him.

As much as it hurt, a deep ache that spread through his very grace when he thought about it, Castiel made a silent promise to the hunter he loved that he’d keep his distance so as not to ruin what little happiness he’d managed to dig out for himself. And, for a while, the mere knowledge that somewhere Dean Winchester was somewhat whole and happy was enough. Castiel went on fighting to bring peace to Heaven, to right the wrongs of his brothers, and tried to pretend his every unconscious thought wasn’t about green eyes, rough hands, and the Metallica songs he’d learned riding in the Impala.

Castiel, however, wasn’t stupid. He’d been around long enough to know that no matter how hard he tried, he would eventually cave to his instincts. 

It started innocently enough. After a particularly trying day fighting off Raphael and his followers, the angel decided to stop by Earth and get a cheeseburger in an attempt to unwind. He didn’t realize until he where he’d unconsciously landed himself until Dean, a woman and the child Cas had seen him bonding with before close behind him, entered the diner. He was halfway back to Heaven before the hunter would even have been able to catch his eye if he’d been looking at anything but the smiling woman on his arm. 

After that, it became impossible to focus. Before the week was up Castiel found himself outside of the house again, awkwardly standing across the street trying to catch a glimpse of what went on inside, of what Dean’s life was really like without him in it. Whenever he thought about what Dean would say about his actions, he looked pointedly away and scanned the area as thought on watch until his nerves cooled back down. Even though he knew Dean had no idea what was going on ten feet from the place he now resided, Castiel still felt a tinge of shame and embarrassment. At first he could rationalize with himself that he was just checking in, that it was important now that the Winchester had given up hunting that someone else look out for him in case any monsters from his past tried to come after him. He told himself over and over again that he was just there to protect someone he cared about, and that was all.

But no monsters came, and eventually Cas had to face the fact that he was only there to try and see Dean.

One afternoon while on his now daily routine walk around the perimeter of the yard, Castiel heard a noise he knew only too well from his runs with the hunters: Dean, somewhere inside, grunting in pain. Before he fully knew what he was doing, the angel was inside the house, scanning the rooms for any sign of danger as he made his way towards the garage where he sensed the hunter’s presence. When he got into the garage, however, he immediately wished he hadn’t overreacted.

Before Dean could look up from where he stood cradling his female companion between himself and the wall, their mouths locked fervently together, Castiel was gone. 

He didn’t come back to Dean again until after Sam came back into his life, until he was called for specifically. Nothing could make him forget the sight of Dean locked on to someone else, and try as he might to be okay with it, it hurt Castiel to know he wasn’t what the hunter wanted.

But there were some truths even he couldn’t run from forever.


End file.
